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Where are they now? Former state Senate Leader Jim Mills

Former Senate Leader Jim Mills, an erudite historian with passion for railtravel and writing, is happily ensconced in Coronado– a far cry from thehubbub of the Capitol, where he spent 22 years in the Legislature.

Mills, 78, started out as a school teacher and was a member of Phi BetaKappa at San Diego State University, and something of the academic alwaysclung to Mills as he navigated the ferocious political shoals of theCapitol. Journalists who covered Mills in the Senate recall him passing bythe reporters’ desks at the rear of the chamber, pencil in hand, asking forhelp with crosswords. Visitors thought he was carefully counting votes–andsometimes he was. But he was just as likely to be looking for a crosswordsolution, such as, “What’s an 11-letter word that means “thunderous verbalattack?” (fulmination).

Mills, a Democrat, served from 1960 to 1982, including a decade as Senateleader, a colorful stretch that straddled the governorships of Pat Brown,Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, and the speakerships of Jesse Unruh–Mills wasa close friend and top lieutenant of Unruh–and Willie Brown.

In Mills’ recollection, today’s Legislature seems relatively staid comparedwith the houses of the 1960s and 1970s, especially when lawmakers gatheredat after-hours watering holes. At Frank Fat’s, Mills remembers RepublicanBill Bagley once setting fire to the hair on his chest. Bagley–the onlyother Phi Beta Kappa member at the time–also used to bet patrons that hecould take his shirt off without taking his coat off. “He did it, too. Hejust ripped it off himself from under his coat. If he was wearing a $20shirt, he’d bet $25; if he was wearing a $25 shirt, he’d bet $30,” Millsrecalled.

What’s he think of the Legislature now?

“The biggest problem is term limits,” says Mills, the author of theConstitutional amendment that gave California a full-time Legislature. “Termlimits are catastrophic, of course, the worst possible thing that couldhappen to the Legislature, but the public doesn’t understand that. It’sastonishingly stupid that people voted for it. Pete Schabarum authored it,and he hated the Legislature. He was just pissed off and mad at the peoplein the Legislature.

“Unruh couldn’t stand him. You know, Pete was a football player, and Jessused to say he had gone through the line too many times without a helmet.”

Although liked in the Senate, many in his own caucus viewed him asinsufficiently partisan–one of the factors that ultimately led to his ousteras Senate leader and his replacement by David Roberti, a Los AngelesDemocrat. Another reason: Mills refused to back certain Democrats forleadership positions, including Joe Montoya, Alan Robbins and PaulCarpenter, who backed Roberti in return for plum committee assignments. Thethree, who used their official offices to enrich themselves, later went toprison for corruption in connection with the FBI’s undercover probe of theCapitol–which many saw as a vindication of Mills’ judgment.

Since leaving the Legislature, Mills has championed rail travel as analternative to building more freeways. He’s a high-profile member ofTRAC–Train Riders Association of California. “You build freeways, and allyou get is more congestion,” Mills said.

Mills fancies himself a wordsmith–and he is. He authored “A DisorderlyHouse,” an account of the Pat Brown-Jesse Unruh years in the Capitol, andthe “Memoirs of Pontius Pilate,” a novel examining Pilate during the firstdecades of Christianity. Mills is at work on a second fictional novel. “It’sa Don Quixote-type story,” Mills says, “about an old gentleman who puts on awhite hat, puts on a black mask, straps on a six gun and climbs onto a whitehorse. He’s a Lone Ranger figure who goes off to find evil doers andeventually bring them to justice.”

“He’s a little crazy, but he’s not as crazy as Don Quixote,” Mills adds.